


Secret, Stoic, And Superstitious

by TheOtherMaddHatter



Series: Oceans Away [3]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates, Captain Holmes, Commander Lestrade, Giant Squids, Lead Up!, Pirate Crews, Pirate!lock, Pirates, Pre-Glimpse of Gold, Prequel, Superstitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherMaddHatter/pseuds/TheOtherMaddHatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt Fill~ for the lovely Navy-Dream!  </p>
<p>The crew of The Science of Deduction is a superstitious one, to say the least.  Captain Holmes knows this first hand, but it doesn't mean he has to like it, or stop trying to prove to all of them that the mysteries of the world are not out to get them.  That they are just superstitions, just figments of confused reality and people's terror.  And he'll never stop trying to convince them all of that fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret, Stoic, And Superstitious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NavyDream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyDream/gifts).



> Prompt Fill~ for the lovely Navy-Dream! 
> 
> She asked for "So Sherlock is the captain and is trying to put an end to the crew’s superstitions (you know, like, the kraken is actually a giant squid and David Jones is not immortal, having a lady on board is not bad luck l…etc etc) however his knowledge falls in deaf ears…."
> 
> This is set within my "Glimpse of Gold" Universe, but happens WAY before any of the events in the story itself. Like way, way before. Sherlock is still a young Captain gaining the loyalty and devotion of his crew, and gathering them from ports around the Caribbean. And all he wants to do is teach them all the glory of science.

They arrived at Baker Island on a Tuesday, and after a brief but startling storm, the large sea creature washes up bright and early Thursday morning with the tail-end of high tide.   It swirls into existence with no noise, beyond the few shouts of the crew on watch, and dances in the brightly lit morning tide pools where it bobs. It’s caught floating among the rocks, long tentacles spooling into winding trails of limp flesh, and is clearly dead from what he can see.  It only moves when the waves slosh it back and forth, and is now trapped due to the receding waters.  Just another dead body flung out to sea.  What a waste, Sherlock thinks.  What an absolute waste.  

 

Captain Holmes just shakes his head ruefully, almost a bit sadly, as he stares down at the large-but-not-monstrous creature.  It’s clearly some type of squid that lives in the deep waters beneath the ships and gently dancing waves far, far out.  It has a long upper mantle and foot that’s a distinct shovel shape, and long trailing tentacles, two of which end is shapes that resemble large lemons.  The siphons are flared wide open at the sides near its eyes, which stare up endlessly at a sky it was never meant to witness.  It was a rich and vibrant red not two hours ago, but now it fades even as the water becomes more and more shallow, and splotches of white are forming over most of the lower body.  It was beautiful, stills is really, and he says so at length while he talks about what sort of creature it must have been in the water.  What sort of life it had lived.  How fast it could have swam and how deep it would have dove.  Sherlock is curious.  Sherlock is always curious.  

 

His crew are superstitious, despite his best efforts.  

 

Lestrade tries, bless his heart, and lingers around the jelly-like body longer then any of the rest of the adult crew, but Captain Holmes can see the unease that flickers into his eyes when he thinks Sherlock can’t see.  He is decisively better then Mike Stamford, at least.  Who had, only thirty minutes prior, declared this to be a bastard son of the sea and the monstrous sea devil The Kraken itself.  He then spit upon the dead squid before high-tailing it out of the rocks as fast as he could.  Which was a rather impressive waddle, Sherlock would agree, even for one such as Mike Stamford.  The rest of the men were much like Mike, in that they came to gawk, but only because this was a monster, the stuff of legends.  A fiend so mysterious that even the ocean herself kept them secret in the dark depths.  They filtered in and out around him every few minutes, cycling so that they didn’t neglect their duties or invoke the rage of their pensive and studious Captain.  They hardly talked, except to say prayers or chants to their own gods, then ask for blessings for the rest of the crew and the ship before leaving.

 

Molly hadn’t come down upon the beach at all for fear of enraging the rest of the male crew, as she herself was a recently-proved-false myth about having a young woman on board.  (It had taken Sherlock nearly two months of watcher her painfully try to disguise and hider herself away behind a man’s persona and clothing before he’d outed her and put a stop to the uproar the reveal had caused.  Mrs. Hudson had been the ultimate decider, though, when she threatened no food or tea for the foreseeable future if the men didn’t all shut their gobs and get on with their duties.  Sherlock could have kissed her.)  But he could see her lingering at the edge of the shoreline, just watching quietly, as was her way.  She had a small pad of paper and lead out too, by the looks of it, taking whatever meager notes she could from where she stood in the sand.  One or two of the children must be relaying her information as he sporadically spoke, because she wrote quickly, but not feverishly so.  

 

The children though, the children were the best part.  They were always the best part, he thought, for such small people.  They didn’t just accept whatever the elder crew members always said outright, and would often prompt him to tell them things about the ocean and the creatures that lived within her depths.  Sherlock would, of course, with patience he normally didn’t show, and a light twinkling in his own eyes as he told them each carefully chosen word.  He didn’t know about the last part, of course, but the children did.  They all saw it.  And when Captain Holmes told them things, he was giving them more then just answers.  He was imparting them with the questions and knowledge to help further their own meager educations, and a fire to fuel them.  Perhaps he didn’t see it and perhaps he did, they were never certain.  Captain Holmes was as much of an enigma as these deep sea creatures he studied were, flitting here-and-there in the sun much like the squid would have in the water.  

 

But it number among the things they were completely certain of about their beloved Captain Holmes, that he was a good man.  That he was a good Captain.  That he did what he did out of love for his crew, despite his strange ways of showing it.  He was a good man, a patient man, but strange and without a lick of sense god gave a billy goat.  Of this, they were absolutely certain.  

 

Along with his unstoppable and feverous desire to drag home and then promptly dissect whatever had washed upon the shore this time.   

 

And, by god, did that squid stink, evil creature or no.  

 

They always did. 


End file.
